


No Time Like The Present

by mansikka



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Hopeful Ending, Light Angst, M/M, POV Magnus Bane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 21:39:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11723100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mansikka/pseuds/mansikka
Summary: On the night before Alec's wedding, Magnus tries one last time to reason with him.





	No Time Like The Present

**Author's Note:**

> Hello :) I have no idea if anyone who reads my usual stuff is reading this, but if you are, you might recognise this as a rewrite of another fic. Kind of lazy, kind of cheating, I know; I make no apologies, it felt like it might fit. So, here you are :) x

“You don’t get it, Magnus,” Alec repeats, and his voice is low, and tired, and he stands as though his shoulders have never known a lack of duty weighing them down. They are standing in his loft, stranded there as though neither of them have the courage to make a move, and not for the first time in his life, Magnus wishes he never even had a heart.

But Magnus does get it, he thinks to himself in defense, still flinching from the sting of Alec’s accusation about his careless flirtation and use of magic to get his attention. He understands completely what it is that is holding Alec back, all the complications and contradictions that are involved, all the questions that must be going back and forth in his mind. It doesn’t make it hurt any less, however. So he watches Alec in silence, not daring to move, not wanting to do anything but let him speak.

“You just don’t. You don’t understand the… the things I have to fix, to do right by my family, and the Clave. I don’t get to… I can’t just have what I want, Magnus, I can’t. It doesn’t work like that for me,” Alec sighs then, looking at Magnus with pleading in his eyes. Magnus can’t tell if he’s pleading for understanding or to be proved wrong, but there was an admission of want there in his words, so he can’t help but clinging on to hope, just a little.

“It isn't because I don’t want this,” Alec continues, a little softer, and he doesn't need to say the words. _This_ is _them_. It’s that thing that has brewed and bubbled between them from the very first time they laid eyes on one another, and that refuses to release its grip.

“And it isn't because I have a problem with this,” Alec adds, a little gruffer, his eyes taking a deliberate sweep up the length of Magnus and leaving him holding his breath, “it’s because I want this. I don't know; maybe more than I've wanted anything my whole life. But I can’t have it. I can’t,”

Silence swells to fill the space between them for what feels to Magnus like an eon, and then he finds the strength to talk again. “Can you at least tell me why?”  

Alec’s resolve is slipping, he’s sure of it. Magnus knows the tone of his voice came out hurting, even if he didn’t intend it to, and it’s both a revelation and a comfort to see the flicker of pain on Alec’s face that says he doesn’t want to cause him hurt. But Alec isn’t quite ready, isn’t yet sure enough of himself to give in to what Magnus is certain he is feeling. “Because I just can’t, okay? Aside from all the… everything I have to do this for, I know I’ll mess it up. I’ll… I’m tired of… making mistakes,”

“And if you give in to it, you could get hurt,” Magnus adds, noting the omission, but feeling it’s an important point, so pushes it to see if that will trigger some kind of reaction in Alec.  

Alec huffs as though that’s not even a possibility. That the thought of him, a Shadowhunter, being struck down by something as simple as caring for someone, is not a concept he’s ever allowed to get lodged in his mind.

“You could get hurt,” Magnus repeats firmly, holding Alec’s gaze in confrontation.

“Yeah, well,” Alec says, shuffling awkwardly on the spot and breaking eye contact, “it happens. This, though, this isn’t happening. It can’t,”  

Magnus takes in the wave of Alec’s hand between them, notes he’s close enough to reach out and snag the ends of his fingers through Alec’s own if he wanted to. But the startled, scared, confused look Alec is giving him guides Magnus to keep his distance. “Alexander. I would never make promises that I would not… I would never pretend that any relationship would not come with some element of risk, or possibility of being hurt. That would be unfair and a lie. I could only promise to never intend to hurt you, and that I would keep that promise, over and over, if it was something that you needed to hear,”

Alec’s face softens a touch at Magnus’ words, and is graced with that half flicker of a smile Magnus has decided is only ever for him for a heartbeat, before it’s gone again. “Don’t know why you’d be interested anyway,” is Alec’s response as he scuffs the toe of his boot along the floor, “not got anything I can give you. Not like I’d even know what I’d be doing,”

“I could list all the things about you that have intrigued me,” Magnus tells him honestly, because it’s not as though he hasn’t already got a list prepared, “your heart is open, in ways I have never seen in a Shadowhunter before. You pretend to be disinterested at times, but I know that disdain you show for mundanes is simply because you don’t understand their world, the simplicity of their lives and its contrast with your own. And your acceptance, your… willingness to listen to Downworlders, to help them, it tells me that… that there is much more to you, than only that pretty face of yours. You are… intriguing,” he repeats, with a slight shrug of his shoulders, “and I would like to know more,”

“How could you?” Alec mumbles in response, his eyes that had raised just a second ago to as he listened to Magnus’ words now back to the floor.

Magnus takes comfort in the fact that Alec hasn't run for hearing his words. There was a time when he feared total rejection from Alec, purely because he hadn’t yet admitted to himself what it was that he felt. He’d feared that Alec’s outlook on life was already carved in stone by the views of his upbringing and the Clave, and although it’s perhaps unfair, selfish even, seeing the conflict on Alec’s face and to be the one on the receiving end of that conflict, it makes Magnus dislike and mistrust the Clave all the more.

“The reasons you have my attention are numerous, but I fear - I know you wouldn't want to hear them. So, it would be a pointless waste of both of our time, to force you to listen to things that you are adamant you don’t want to know. And will insist on rejecting, no matter how true they might be,” Magnus adds, and is unable to keep a tinge of sadness and bitterness from his voice.

Alec’s eyes fly up, pain reflected there because of the pain he knows he’s causing Magnus now. It makes Magnus’ heart jolt to see it.

“I'm no good, Magnus, not like this. I have to… I have to do what’s right. I can’t… I have to. And besides, I can’t be what you want, I can’t be,” Alec says, shaking his head in disbelief, “you can’t want me like this,”

“Yet you are what I want,” Magnus counters, calm and staring him down, daring Alec to try to look elsewhere.

“How?” Alec asks, and there’s bewilderment in his voice, his hands tightly gripped into fists down by his sides as though he doesn’t know what to do with them. “What could I ever give you? You could have… anything. Everything, Magnus; you’re immortal, you could do, have, anything... anyone you want. And compared to all of that, I’m… I'm nothing,” he finishes with, his voice trailing away, and his head hanging with a single shake.

“You could give me you,” Magnus suggests, his heart sinking a little for realizing just how deep that self-doubt in Alec goes, “right now, that is all I want,” and it's true, Magnus sighs to himself, this is far beyond infatuation. Alec really has unlocked something in him, and he is as terrified of it as much as he’s sure he wants it.

“You can’t mean that,” Alec denies, shaking his head again, refusing to hear the words.

“Alexander,” Magnus says, trying to find a better way to voice what it is he’s feeling, “I have already told you, that for the longest time I have closed myself off to people. Sought only the pleasure of their company, and then left, knowing the moment was fleeting, that there was no danger of feeling too much, of becoming too invested. It is… painful, to repeatedly open your heart to someone, and to never be enough for them. To be too much. I know what I am-”

“You’re not too much,” Alec retorts immediately, and his eyes blow wide with shock at what he’s just said. But then he rolls his shoulders as though he doesn’t want to take the words back, and the gaze he gives Magnus is piercing.  

“Alexander,” Magnus says, softer and full of surprise, allowing himself to raise his hand just a fraction, to reach towards him.

“I can’t, Magnus,” Alec tells him again, beginning to turn away, and his words are quiet, and full of emotion, most of that being regret.

“What you mean is,” Magnus amends for him and in doing so stopping Alec mid turn, not fighting to keep the hurt from his voice, “is that you won’t try,”

“Not if it means losing everything I’ve ever worked for, everything I’ve ever known, no,” Alec replies, but the firmness in his voice is marred by the way he looks at him, like he wants to have Magnus, and to let Magnus have him, and to give in to this feeling that’s been pulsing between them.

“If you keep pushing me away. If you continue this… charade, with me, Alec, I cannot… I will not do that to myself another time. And I will not ask again. I will not be here to ask you again,”

Alec’s eyes narrow, and there’s real fear there, which does something odd to Magnus’ stomach. “What's that supposed to mean?" 

Magnus thinks of his desperate need to be anywhere but here if this wedding is really going to happen, can already, vividly imagine how the hurt will cut through him for seeing Lydia holding Alec's hand, but can't find the words to voice that out loud.

Alec straightens a little taller, and he opens his mouth a couple of times before he can speak. “Are you saying that if I don’t… if we don’t… you won’t stick around? You’ll leave?”  

Magnus pinches the bridge of his nose, cursing his choice of words, and tries to find a better way to say all that he’s thinking. “Alexander. I am not trying to force you into anything that you don’t want. I'm not trying to give you an ultimatum. And besides, where would I go? I have my own duties, my own responsibilities here, you know that. I'm just telling you, that for my own… peace, my own heart, that I can’t keep-”

“I didn't say I don’t want you,” Alec blasts back at him then, and if that doesn’t steal the breath from Magnus’ lungs.

“I understand, Alec, I do,” Magnus says, fighting to keep his voice level, “I understand that this, me, comes with consequences for you. That you have… that you have so many reasons to fight against what you are feeling when it comes to me,”

“It isn’t just about you,” Alec counters, shaking his head and waving his hand towards him again, “it’s got nothing to do with who you are, what you - what we both are. I just haven’t… I can’t let myself feel like this. I can’t,”

“Believe me,” Magnus sighs, closing his eyes again, “if I could turn off how I was feeling, prevent myself from even thinking about you half as much as I have been doing, don’t you think I would have found a way? Do you think it is any easier for me, to have allowed myself to care for you - to want you, as I have come to?”

Alec frowns for a moment and then clears his throat, squaring his shoulders. “So, you know that I want you back, right? That... that it goes both ways?”

For a second, Magnus’ heart soars at the words he never thought he’d hear out loud. Sure, he’s seen the truth of it dance around the edge of Alec’s eyes, felt his gaze on him in parting, and if longing could come in waves then he is adamant he’s felt Alec’s longing for him repeatedly washing over his skin. But to actually hear those words spoken, admitted out loud, is better than any sound he could ever imagine hearing, and it’s left him a little dumbstruck. All he can do is nod his response.  

“So, you do know that me saying this can’t happen isn’t because of you. Or anything you’ve done. Right?”

Alec’s logic is annoying, because Magnus can completely understand where he’s coming from. He knows how heavy the burdens of the Institute weigh on Alec’s neck, of how he fears he’ll turn everything good to dust by just being who he truly is. He knows how frightened he is of that, and everything that comes with giving in to what he’s feeling. And he also knows that Alec is rejecting him from a place of duty, that in other circumstances, were he not on the receiving end of them, that might be something in him that Magnus would admire.

It doesn't mean it isn't rejection though. He can’t see past that, not when he sees, he knows how good things could be between them. It would just be like coming home, Magnus thinks, to a home he’s never had before, but now doesn't want to be without.

Alec is watching this internal debate play across his face, and Magnus can feel Alec’s heart pounding across the space between them, he sure of it. He knows how torn Alec is. He just needs to find the right words to make him listen, to give him the strength he needs to be brave.

“You say that. But you’re still getting married. You’re still marrying someone that you barely know, that you have no feelings for aside from those of that duty you keep hiding behind,”

“I don’t have a choice here-”

“You do-”

“But I don’t,” Alec says, his voice wavering a little with frustration, “if I don’t fix this. If I don’t… if I don’t do this now, I-”

“The responsibility for what is happening with the Clave falls on the shoulders of more than just you, Alec. It is unreasonable of anyone to be making you believe otherwise,”

“No one is making me do anything I don’t want,” Alec counters, squaring his shoulders again, in complete contrast to the doubt written across his face.

“Aside from you,” Magnus points out, watching as Alec slumps, lets his gaze fall to the floor, and as Magnus continues watching, gives a tight nod of agreement. “So what is it that you want. For you, and only for you, if there is no obstacle holding you back?”

Alec raises his head slow then, observes him carefully, allows his eyes to deliberately linger so Magnus knows without him saying a single word what it is that he wants. But he voices it anyway. “I’d… maybe I’d wanna figure out what this thing is between us,”

“You are a most confusing man at times, Alexander,” Magnus sighs, rocking on his heels, and telling himself not to be so impatient, “what you’re saying is that these… feelings that you have, that we both have, we cannot have. And that you want me, but can’t have me, so I'm supposed to just be okay with that? I'm suppose to just stand here and watch? Why would I let someone that I care about, no matter how new that caring was, do something that was going to cause them a lifetime of unhappiness?”

Alec rubs a hand over his face, and a dry laugh escapes from between his lips. “When you say it like that-”

“It sounds just as foolish as you think it does,” Magnus finishes for him, his tone curt. He doesn't mean it to be, but he’s hurting here too. He should never have let himself care in the first place, he should never have allowed Alec in, even for a moment.

“I'm sorry,” Alec blasts out, and his voice breaks, his body arches towards Magnus even across this gap between them, appearing to be confused by the pull to comfort him, and the idea that he must, for both their sakes perhaps, stay clear.  

Magnus knows that he should walk away. Turn his back on this Shadowhunter that’s taken it upon himself to fix an institution that was broken long before it was even really established. He can’t have his heart broken again, he won’t allow it to happen. Camille wounded him too deep, as has every other person who has fleetingly come into his life only to waltz out of it again when the sheer weight of all Magnus represented became too overwhelming.  

But he wants Alec, he wants Alec like he’s not wanted anyone before, he thinks, and there’s a connection, a feeling that he gets from Alec that tells him this is so very different than anything he’s ever experienced before. It’s worth the difficulty, the fight, the pain if they can both get through it, Magnus is sure it is.

Magnus decides to take matters into his own hands, or at least, to give Alec a helpful nudge that might help fix something in his mind. He stretches languidly, lazily, knowing full well the way Alec’s eyes are on him as he arches his neck. He’s seen Alec’s gaze on him multiple times, after all, caught him snatching his eyes away on multiple occasions, and who would Magnus be if he didn’t play into that?

He lowers his head then, his eyes pinning Alec’s in place, hearing a solitary loud thud of his heart. Magnus stands to full height, and very slowly takes a step forward, never breaking eye contact.  

“Tell me you don’t want me, Alec. Tell me. And I’ll stop,” he says, his pace deliberate, giving Alec plenty of time to consider his words.

“I don’t… Magnus, I don’t want you to stop,” Alec replies, sounding heartbreakingly confused.

“No,” Magnus agrees, “but you don’t want to take a risk on me either. I've heard that a thousand times over, Alec; you wouldn’t be the first. But you keep… toying with me. I do not enjoy that feeling,”  

Alec’s hands fall, and curl into his sides. “I don’t want to hurt you, Magnus. I don't. I never mean to do that,”

“So tell me you don’t want me,”

Alec’s voice is barely audible when he finally speaks. “But I can’t. You know I want you. You know. I just… I just told you,”

“I do,” Magnus agrees, giving a slight nod as he stops directly in front of Alec, his eyes falling to his chest where he can hear Alec’s heart pounding out a staccato, “but you can’t keep doing this to me. Seeking me out for help whenever you need it, and looking at me as though you want something else from me, yet never willing to take a chance. You don’t even trust yourself to be alone with me in the same room for very long, do you? Because you know how badly you want to reach out,”

Alec’s look for him then is tortured, and Magnus wants nothing more than to wrap him up in his arms, to take away that permanently etched frown that he wishes he wasn’t the one currently deepening. But he has to do something, he has to have something happen. Either that he steps away from Alec Lightwood forever, or forward so that he can convince him to stop fighting what they could be.

“Alexander. Here is what I’m going to do. I’m not going to force you, but I am going to kiss you,” he says, and Alec sucks in a gasping breath of what has to be fear, yet his eyes fall automatically to Magnus’ mouth. Magnus takes courage from that and continues. “I am going to lean in and kiss you, any moment now. And if you truly don’t want me to. If you truly, honestly believe that this,” and he waves a finger between them, “is a bad idea, is something that you truly cannot have, well then. I guess you’re just going to have to make me stop,”

Alec’s eyes widen and his tongue darts out to wet his lips, and the action might be involuntary, but it tightens Magnus’ pants a little all the same. He leans a little closer, and closer still, imagining Alec’s internal monologue going something like _please, kiss me now, no stop, stop, I can’t stop myself if you do_. And then he pauses, inches from Alec’s face, their chests ghosting together in a whisper, with Magnus watching Alec’s eyes fall to his lips again, his own slightly parted in anticipation. And then, he does it. Raises himself up, balances his hands on Alec’s forearms, and presses his lips against Alec’s in a slow, deliberate kiss.

He may as well have triggered an avalanche, because that one touch is not nearly enough.

Magnus’ hands raise to cradle Alec’s face as he reaches in to kiss him again, never for more than a few seconds, always giving Alec the opportunity to pull away. Magnus can feel Alec’s hands twitching uncontrollably at his sides, and suddenly they’re not. They’re finger deep in Magnus’ hair, holding him exactly where he wants him as Alec kisses back, furious and full of claim. Magnus’ own hands loop around Alec’s neck, and he presses himself against Alec, earning himself a low growl and Alec pressing back hard against him, one hand dropping to slide down his back and pull them more flush together.  

Alec’s kisses are not gentle, they are ferocious, exactly the kind Magnus expected of him after holding back for so long. He has imagined countless times how much Alec might want to do that to him, and more, and he’s lost his own mind thinking about all the things he wanted to do to Alec in turn. And now he’s getting to experience it, Magnus realizes his fantasies have always been barely adequate. This Alec, the real one, is a furnace ready to consume him.

Magnus doesn't mind that imagery for a moment.

He kisses back with as much of his own force as he can without pushing Alec too far, though when he flicks his tongue hard into Alec’s mouth, it forces out an answering moan from him that flares heat through Magnus’ core. Alec sucks on his tongue, chases it, moves his hands shakily down Magnus’ back to press into Magnus’ ass so that he can grind against him, and if Alec’s forwardness isn’t the most delicious of surprises, Magnus thinks to himself, half dazed, then there’ll be nothing else left to surprise him in this world.

Magnus fights with himself not to drag Alec to a bed, a couch, anywhere where he can get even closer to him. He can feel that Alec probably wouldn’t resist, not with the way his hands repeatedly mold over him, pulling his shirt free of his pants to dart up under it and greedily sweep over the skin of his back, then smoothing down again to cup his ass as he moans into his mouth. But as much as he knows they could easily give in to that want raging there between them, Magnus also knows that if they do, if they do that now, it’s far too much too soon. It’s not, in about thousand ways, but also it is. Alec is more than just a moment, and if he’s going to convince Alec of that, to make him understand that this thing is something important, that has duration, then he needs to be the one to control the pace he’s set.  

Gradually, their kiss loses its intensity, and they lean into each other more for comfort than anything else. Their breathing is heavy, and their lips find skin along jaws and necks until Magnus’ head finally falls against Alec’s shoulder, and Alec’s arms circle him protectively, gathering him close.  

Alec kisses him once, long and hard on the side of his head, then sighs into his ear, sounding defeated, and finally, he whispers, “I could never have said no to you, Magnus. Not indefinitely, anyway. I don’t have the willpower. I don’t have the strength,”

Magnus nods against him. “Of course I know that - for this, not for anything else; you have untold strength for... so many other things. But you've been looking at me as though you want to reach out and have me, for just about as long as I have known you,”

Alec’s hand strokes gently down Magnus’ back, and Magnus is sure he feels his face flush as he buries it further into his neck. He’s been kidding himself if he thought that Magnus was oblivious to what he’s been thinking all this time. “Then why now?”

“Because, Alec,” Magnus noses against him, “you’re getting married. There really is no time like the present to make you aware of what it is you’re feeling for me,”  

Expletives fall from Alec’s lips then, muttered into Magnus’ neck as he wraps his arms around him even tighter, and Magnus fights the urge to laugh.

“I need to… do something about that,” Alec sighs into his ear, following it up with a kiss there.

“You do,” Magnus agrees, pressing kisses wherever he can get to, “I accept that you may choose to use my forcing of your hand as your reason for… calling things off. In fact, I don’t mind being the reason for that at all,”  

“Hey,” Alec says as he raises his head to look Magnus in the eye, “I've never felt forced by you, okay? Not for this, not for anything. I just… I didn’t know I could let myself have this. I didn’t know I could… I didn’t know I… I could put what I wanted first. I didn't know I had the right to,”

Magnus narrows his eyes. “Do I have to kiss you again to prove to you how wrong I think you are about that?”  

“Magnus,” Alec replies, his voice dropping, and his eyes again falling to Magnus’ lips like he’s found a new addiction, “to be honest, I’d kind of prefer it if you just kissed me because you wanted to,”

So Magnus does just that, slow and leisurely, melting into him, and at least for that moment, they forget everything else; outside influences, pressing responsibilities, urgent matters that they should both probably be attending to but in that moment, won’t.  

They break away, a long time later, looking at each other with a mix of awe and uncertainty, yet a sense of hope seems to hang in the air.

“I'm still not sure about this,” Alec says, and he grips Magnus a little tighter in case there’s any misunderstanding, “I mean, I want this. I never didn't want this. I just… I don’t know how any of this is gonna work,”

Magnus shrugs then, not really having the answers, not having any idea what the future might hold for them, separately or together. It’s worth the risk, he tells himself again, pleading with his heart to have made a good decision. “Alexander. One thing at a time. One moment at a time, okay?”

“Okay,” Alec agrees, smiling easily and leaning in to kiss him sweetly, pulling back with a triumphant expression on his face. Magnus has to chase it, and for another long moment they forget themselves in each other.

But then Magnus is the one that’s pulling back, lacing their fingers together and squeezing, knowing that this next part will be difficult, but for them to progress, it has to be done. Alec nods like he knows that's his cue.

“So. I need to get back to the Institute and deal with, uh, things,” Alec says, frowning down at their fingers and covering them with his free hand. Magnus smiles, and hopes Lydia won’t be too disappointed. He has a feeling she won’t be, that she hasn’t been completely oblivious to what there is between them.

“I don’t envy you that conversation,” Magnus replies, and Alec gives a huff of laughter that morphs into a groan, clearly not looking forward to it himself.

“And then what?” Alec asks, raising his eyes to look at him and looking so hopeful, it makes Magnus’ breath catch all over again. Leaning in and promising himself one more kiss until Alec returns, Magnus then drops and nuzzles against his shoulder before raising his head to smile at him.

“Alexander. How about that first date?”

 


End file.
